Is guilty of the same unnat’ral sin: 
  The study now of every girl of parts
  Is how to win your money, not your hearts. 
  O! in what sweet, what ravishing delights,
  Our beaux and belles together pass their nights! 
  By ardent perturbations kept awake,
  Each views with longing eyes the other’s—­stake. 
  The smiles and graces are from Britain flown,
  Our_ Cupid is an errant sharper grown,
  And Fortune_ sits on Cytherea’s throne. 
  In all these things, though women may be blam’d,
  Sure men, the wiser men, should be asham’d! 
  And ’tis a horrid scandal, I declare,
  That four strange queens should rival all the fair;
  Four jilts, with neither beauty, wit nor parts,
  O shame! have got possession of their hearts;
  And those bold sluts, for all their queenly pride,
  Have play’d loose tricks, or else they’re much bely’d. 
  Cards were at first for benefits design’d,
  Sent to amuse, and not enslave the mind: 
  From good to bad how easy the transition! 
  For what was pleasure once, is now perdition. 
  Fair ladies, then these wicked GAMESTERS shun,
  Whoever weds one, is, you see, undone.

FINIS.

[Illustration:  Act 5.  The Gamester.  Sc. 4. 
Mr. REDDISH as BEVERLEY. 
Bev.—­Thou art most friendly to the miserable.
Published Octo. 19, 1776, by T. Lowndes & Partners]

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THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY

Announces Its

Publications for the Third Year (1948-1949)

[Transcriber’s Note:  Many of the listed titles are or will be available from Project Gutenberg.  Where possible, the e-text number is given in brackets.]

At least two items will be printed from each of the three following groups: 

Series IV:  Men, Manners, and Critics

Sir John Falstaff (pseud.), The Theatre (1720). 
Aaron Hill, Preface to The Creation; and Thomas Brereton, Preface to
  Esther. [#15870]
Ned Ward, Selected Tracts.

Series V:  Drama

Edward Moore, The Gamester (1753). 
Nevil Payne, Fatal Jealousy (1673). 
Mrs. Centlivre, The Busie Body (1709). 
Charles Macklin, Man of the World (1781).

Series VI:  Poetry and Language

John Oldmixon, Reflections on Dr. Swift’s Letter to Harley (1712); and
  Arthur Mainwaring, The British Academy (1712). 
Pierre Nicole, De Epigrammate. 
Andre Dacier, Essay on Lyric Poetry.

THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY

Makes Available

Inexpensive Reprints of Rare Materials

from

English Literature of the
Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries